The MIR and The Case Against Pinochet
Relatives and friends of the MIR members assassinated by the Pinochet regime filed a civil lawsuit before judge Juan Guzmán Tapia against Pinochet. The criminal complaint states that the MIR had been formed in 1965 and that due to ideological and tactical differences did not become part of the Popular Unity government headed by Salvador Allende. Still, the organisation had served as a base of support for Allende and had shown willingness to confront violent sedition directed against the Popular Unity government organized by its US-backed right-wing opponents.
Subsequently, with the September 11, 1973 Chilean coup and the overthrow and death of Allende Chile entered a period of severe military repression in which members of the former democratically elected socialist Allende government and its supporters were deemed enemies of the state. From the onset on September 11, 1973 the MIR became a major focus of death squads and its members began to be subjected to extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances.
As a consequence, the MIR initiated a resistance against the military junta's violent repression that accompanied the clandestine publication of the document Qué es el MIR? (What is the MIR?) which proposed a series of resolutions to confront the repression, including political pressure, denunciations and propaganda. On one page (page 37 of the political document), the MIR presented the political question of arms in this resistance.
The lawsuit noted that the armed struggle was not central to the ideology of the MIR and that it had historically been a political organisation whose strategy had principally involved the mobilization of working class people and the poor in an attempt to exert political pressure to effectuate political and social change to advance their political cause.
The lawsuit noted that under the pretext of war serious violations of human rights had been committed in violations of both international and constitutional law. The document noted that the cruellest example was the extermination of the MIR political organization, in which according to the document its members fell victims to the following crimes:
- Homicide (first degree murder)
- Killings in mock confrontations – irrational use of force (sucha as mobilizing 300 security agents to arrest 4 people.)
- False application of the ‘law of flight’ (executing people for escaping after being informally freed.)
- Mass killings (state terrorism)
- Abduction and Forced disappearances (sanctioned by article 141 of the Criminal Code)
- Torture (violation of the Geneva convention)
- Illicit associations (in accordane with Article 292 of the Criminal Code)
- Genocide (in accordance with Article 2 of CPPCG)
Read more about this topic: Revolutionary Left Movement (Chile)
Famous quotes containing the word case:
“If someone does something we disapprove of, we regard him as bad if we believe we can deter him from persisting in his conduct, but we regard him as mad if we believe we cannot. In either case, the crucial issue is our control of the other: the more we lose control over him, and the more he assumes control over himself, the more, in case of conflict, we are likely to consider him mad rather than just bad.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)